Issue: Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In 1948, when the atrocities from the time of World War II became known and named, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration contains a preamble and 30 articles that enumerate basic human rights that every human being is entitled to enjoy. Here's just a sampling of the rights that are set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

* The right to life, liberty, and security of person.

* The right to a nationality.

* The right to be equal before the law and not experience discrimination in the protections afforded by the law.

* The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

* The right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

* The right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of him/herself and of his/her family.

* The right to education.

You can read the full text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights here, or watch a really cool video with an animation sequence for each article here. (The film is totally worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch it.)

The year 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration, so there have been a number of movements to spread the word about the Declaration and encourage people to get involved (personally and politically) in ensuring that their own life incorporates these principles of human dignity and human rights. Here are two websites that I recommend for learning more about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

1) Every Human Has Rights. This campaign is sponsored by The Elders, an organization I've only recently learned about but that really gets my heart palpitating. (The video at the beginning of this blog post is from The Elders.) The Elders is a council of--well, of some of my greatest heroes, actually. Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others. The council has come together with the idea that if our world is a village, we need people with experience and commitment and compassion (a council of Elders) to share with us the value of their experience. So you can click here to get messages from The Elders, and here to get involved with the Every Human Has Rights campaign.

2) Protect the Human with Amnesty International. Seriously, take some time to check out this website. The Film, Music and More section is really great, with some fascinating films and book resources--too many for me to link all of them here, but go take a look. If you go to the Take a Stand section, you can quickly send letters and sign petitions on issues like Darfur, violence against women, political prisoners, and more.



"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

Happy Holidays!

(Here is a gift this holiday season: Maya Angelou's beautiful Christmas poem, addressed to believers and unbelievers and Christians and Muslims and Jews and Buddhists and more. I wish you --sincerely-- a holiday season filled with joy and peace.)

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem
By Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.

Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
implore you to stay awhile with us
so we may learn by your shimmering light
how to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language
to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ

Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices to celebrate the promise of
Peace.

We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace.

We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace.

We look at each other, then into ourselves,
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation:

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

Book Review: Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles

"Every time you say 'Africa is…' the words crumble and break. From every generalisation you must exclude at least five countries… Africa is full of surprises." (Richard Dowden)

This book is phenomenal, and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to deepen their understanding of the African continent. Richard Dowden is a journalistic veteran; he's spent over 30 years writing about Africa for several prominent British publications. From the outset of this book, Dowden acknowledges the impossibility of providing a comprehensive survey of Africa, but in my opinion this 554-page tome is a good attempt. Most of his chapters deal with specific countries: Uganda, Somalia, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Burundi and Rwanda, etc. He also deals with continent-wide issues like AIDS, colonialism, and neocolonialism. Colonialism is an ongoing theme in the book. I've long had the sense that many of the current problems in various regions of Africa can be traced back to the abuses and travesties of colonial history, and this book definitely reinforced that idea for me.

My dad sent me this book after reading that Chinua Achebe (whose work I adore) wrote the Foreward. In Achebe's words, "The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader who then becomes ready to be drawn deep into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, towards a deeper understanding of foreign peoples, cultures and situations. Richard Dowden's [book] succeeds marvelously." High praise indeed.

One of my favorite chapters of the book is the chapter on Zimbabwe. Dowden first met Robert Mugabe back in 1976, when he was still a revolutionary freedom fighter, and Dowden's explanation of Zimbabwe's history really helped me understand recent events there. Likewise with the chapters on Sudan and the Congo; in fact, I drew heavily on the information from this book when I wrote my blog posts on those two countries. And of course, anyone who knows me is aware of my affinity for former-colonies of Portugal, so I enjoyed the section on Angola and wished he'd included Mozambique as well.

According to The Economist's book review, Dowden's book focuses on "two questions: why is development so slow in Africa? And how, in the midst of so much savagery, does the humanity of Africans survive as one of the continent’s defining characteristics?" I can think of other wonderful books that have attempted to answer the first question (like Guns, Germs and Steel, and The End of Poverty). But Africa approaches it from a slightly different angle, with an eye bent toward history and toward the agency of individual people. I loved Dowden's prose for its honesty. He is unflinching in describing the horrors of wars and famines that he has witnessed in Africa, and not afraid to indict specific people for the role they've played in the collapse of communities, but at the same time there is no doubt how much he admires individual people and whole cultures that he has met and lived with in Africa. In his words:

"Westerners arriving in Africa for the first time are always struck by its beauty and size--even the sky seems higher. And they often find themselves suddenly cracked open. They lose inhibitions, feel more alive, more themselves, and they begin to understand why, until then, they have only half lived. In Africa the essentials of existence--light, earth, water, food, birth, family, love, sickness, death--are more immediate, more intense. Visitors suddenly realize what life is for. To risk a huge generalization: [In the West], amid our wasteful wealth and time-pressed lives we have lost human values that still abound in Africa."

That passage sounds a little like he might fall into the trap of romanticizing and exoticizing Africa... but for the most part he doesn't. (This particular passage describes something that I felt frequently, though certainly not always, when I lived in Mozambique.) He gives a clear-eyed look at a complicated continent, and it is one fantastic read.

(And I can't finish this review without mentioning one thing. See the boy holding the soccer ball on the cover of the book? My one-year-old daughter is obsessed with him. She carries this book --heavy as it is-- around the house with her, pointing to him and saying her version of the word "friend" over and over, and sometimes she kisses him. Maybe it's the way he looks straight out at you, nothing in his eyes but self-ness. This photo has a strong effect on me as well; I think it's a great picture. But whatever the reason, my daughter loves him.)

You can read other reviews of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles here and here.

Film Review: Rabbit Proof Fence

Rabbit Proof Fence is a rare kind of film. Based on a true story, the film is set in Western Australia in the 1930s. At that time, the government had a policy of rounding up half-caste Aboriginal children and placing them in camps to become "civilized." The children were "trained" to become domestic works and become integrated into white society. Incredibly, and disturbingly, these kinds of government policies persisted (in various forms) into the 1970s in Australia. The term Stolen Generations is used to refer to the children who were separated from their families with the intention of removing all vestiges of Aboriginal culture from them.

In Rabbit Proof Fence, we meet three young girls who are kidnapped from their mother and placed into one of these camps. The three girls escape and begin a 1,000-mile journey home to their families, through the desolate Australian backland. The story is based on the life of Molly Craig whose daughter Doris Pilkington wrote the book Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence to document her mother's life. Molly Craig passed away in 2004, after a remarkable (and remarkably sad) life.

You can see a trailer for the film here. Rabbit Proof Fence is easy to find. Check Netflix, Blockbuster, your local library... You'll be glad you did.

One reason this film is particularly applicable to the subject matter of this blog is because of the interlink between a people's history and a people's present tense. In order to understand the kinds of systematic inequalities that persist throughout the world, it is essential to understand the roots, which are sometimes based in a more recent past than we'd like to acknowledge, of those inequalities.

Rabbit Proof Fence is moving to me on a number of levels. I first saw it years ago at the Tower in Salt Lake City. I remember I went with my friends Julie and John (who are now married to each other). I loved it because it taught me something meaningful about opening my eyes to the tragedies of racism, and also the beauty of other people and the world around me. Since then, I've seen the movie two more times. My own motherhood has created an even more intense connection to the film, and a greater empathy for the suffering of the mothers. It’s such a horrible concept: that a racist government could have the power to rip apart loving families. Side- by-side with this tragedy, though, is a very real sense of hope and defiance of racist systems. It’s interesting that re-watching the movie, I was surprised once again at the depth of its tragedy, and I realized that I had completely forgotten some of the more horrendous scenes over time. For whatever reason, after the movie ends the feeling that stays with me is a sense of the movie’s beauty and expansiveness, and over time the sense of outrage fades. Perhaps that’s another theme of the movie: forgiveness, and moving on.

Issue: World AIDS Day

Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day. In fact, it's the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. So I thought it fitting to do a post about the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. (A pandemic is an epidemic that affects various geographical areas at the same time.)

If you take a look at this map, you'll see that AIDS truly is a global issue. Nearly 40 million people are infected, including over 2 million children. The countries with the highest rates of AIDS are the southernmost countries in Africa; in some areas, 35 percent of all people are infected with AIDS. Listen to this: 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981. These mind-boggling death rate has left an estimated 15 million children orphaned in Africa alone.



In the United States, the AIDS issue sometimes gets marginalized and treated as a "gay issue," since about 50 percent of Americans with AIDS are gay men. But Americans tend to drastically underestimate the global impact of the disease, as well as the fact that AIDS really isn't an issue that we can bundle up and put on the doorstep of any particular group. For example, the demography of AIDS is significantly different in Africa. There, AIDS is typically transmitted through heterosexual sex (in some cases from unfaithful husbands to their wives). In fact, in sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 60 percent of the people infected with AIDS are women. This is partially due to the fact that women's anatomy renders them more vulnerable to contracting AIDS. There are other reasons, too, like the fact that women typically have less control over their sexual choices than men, and the rampant rates of sexual violence in many parts of the world. (Sadly, forced sex is even more likely to result in HIV infection for a woman because of the increased risk of tissue tearing and blood-to-blood contact.)

HIV/AIDS is also transmitted from mothers to their babies (either in utero or sometimes through breastfeeding), through blood transfusions, and through contaminated needles. (In the U.S., "dirty needles" typically refers to needles used for intravenous drug injections, but in less-developed countries where health care facilities have considerably fewer resources at their disposal, it often refers to unsanitized needles used in hospitals and health clinics.) There is evidence that the role of contaminated needles has been underplayed in the AIDS discussion. There is plenty of controversy around questions of prevalent transmission in Africa, and also plenty of controversy around the best way to stop the spread of the disease (or at least which kinds of programs are most effective).

I personally saw evidence of the needle issue at a focus group in Mozambique. At the orphanage where we volunteered, I attended a meeting with orphan heads of household. Most of the attendees were teenagers whose parents were dead, and they came to discuss the realities of their lives. It was sobering; perhaps another day I'll write more about this experience. For today, I'll just mention that their economic situations were as grave as you might expect in a country where the average yearly income is $250. (Total. Per year. And don't buy the "cost of living is so small" argument either; Joe and I found it more expensive to buy groceries there than in Utah.) The children at this meeting talked about the economic challenges of trying to keep their siblings in school, trying to keep food on the table. But one thing that really stood out to me was their accounting of their experiences with health care. The teenagers reported that at local health clinics, if they needed a vaccination or injection, they were required to bring their own needles. None of them could afford to buy new, sterile needles--they could hardly afford food--and so they borrowed used needles from their neighbors and took them to the clinics.

This focus group helped me understand why an estimated 16 percent of Mozambicans are infected with AIDS. It also helped me understand the staggering implications of the AIDS orphan situation for these 15 million African AIDS orphans. (The number might be much higher; it's hard to get good numbers.) The situation of AIDS orphans deserves a post in and of itself, so I will come back to it later, but for now please check out this website and this article for a good overview. Also, a few years ago I wrote an essay about my experiences at the orphanage in Mozambique that you can read here.

A couple of other good websites for learning more about the global AIDS pandemic are The Global Fund and (RED).

Followup: Pray the Devil Back to Hell

You can read my review of the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell here. The film is the story of modern-day Liberia, a country with a volatile and fascinating history. Yesterday I was listening to NPR and I heard an interview with Helene Cooper, who was describing her childhood growing up as part of the wealthy "ruling class" of Liberia. If you are interested in learning more about the history of Liberia (a country that was colonized by freed black American former-slaves, some of whom went on to enslave Africans, in the early 1800s), you can listen to Cooper's interview here. Her book, The House at Sugar Beach, is now on my to-read list. When I get around to it, I'll let you know how I like it--but based off this interview, I have a feeling I'll like it a lot.

Country Profile and Action: Sudan

In my last country profile on Democratic Republic of the Congo, I mentioned the crisis in Sudan. I thought I'd already published this post, but as it turns out I forgot to post it to the blog. So reading this post on Sudan will hopefully give you more context on what I said about DRC!

Most Americans have heard a thing or two about the situation in Sudan. Back in 2004, the U.S. Department of State called the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian and human rights crisis in the world today." And things have not gotten better since then.

Over the past four years, an estimated 400,000 people have been killed in the Darfur region of Sudan. Another 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and are living in refugee camps. The people in refugee camps face all the hardships that refugees always face: Malnutrition, lack of education for children, lack of employment for adults, disease, rape, and violence. For those individuals still in their homes, they are at risk of being killed, tortured, systematically raped, and displaced. The situation in Sudan is being termed a genocide because of ethnicity-based killings (compared by some to what occurred in Rwanda), and there are no signs that things are improving. The stories of violence coming out of Darfur are atrocious. In one 2004 study, 61 percent of Sudanese respondents said they had witnessed the killing of a family member.

Sudan has been in a state of war for decades. In reality, modern conflicts between northern peoples and southern peoples can be traced back to the British colonial period. In the 1800s, European powers (mostly the French, British, Portuguese, and Belgians) basically divided the African continent between them, arbitrarily drawing country borderlines with no regard for tribal boundaries or land use issues. The Sudan was formed to include a huge geographical area (one-fourth the size of the United States), with Arabs living in the north and black Africans living in the south. (These ethnic labels are a little oversimplified, but they will do.) The British then forbade the Muslim Arabs to proselyte the southern people, and sent Christian missionaries instead. (To this day, Sudan is ethnically and religiously divided, Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, and this divide is at the root of many ensuing conflicts.)

When Sudan gained independence in 1956, virtually all of the government posts were held by northern Arabs (who are the minority population-wise). Southern people often felt (accurately) that their interests were not represented by the government. A series of conflicts arose over land use issues (like when the government planned to build a dam that would divert the flow of a river that southern farmers needed). In 1983, fundamentalist Islamic law was declared as the general policy of the country, exacerbating the already-notable ethnic differences between the two populations. A civil war ensued and lasted for 2 decades, killing 2 million people.

But just as peace agreements were negotiated and the civil war was coming to a close, a new conflict broke out in the Darfur region. The current conflict has its roots in rebel groups who have accused the government of neglecting the Darfur region. There are reports of atrocities committed by government troops and by rebel militia groups (and this is complicated, because as time goes on the rebel groups are increasingly splintered). The group accused of committing genocide, though, is the Janjaweed (which means "devil on horseback"), an armed rebel group that has torn through Darfur raping women and children, stealing, bombing villages, and killing people based on their ethnicity.

I found this YouTube video that provides a pretty good overview of the factors contributing to the situation in Sudan. I am not, though, an expert in Sudanese history, so if any of you notice an inaccuracy or would like to add to anything to what this video says, please post a comment.



There are so many ways you can get involved in the grassroots movement to promote the end of ethnic cleansing in Sudan. This is a cause that has great popular support in the U.S. and is getting a relatively-large amount of publicity here (especially in comparison with other human rights crises of recent years). Here are just a few action suggestions (and you can find a very long list of additional ideas from Human Rights Watch at this website). Follow the links for more information about each suggestion:

* McCain and Obama, during the campaign, issued a joint statement promising resolve and action for Sudan; send President-Elect Obama a message asking him to make good on that promise.

* Watch "Darfur Destroyed." (I'm not tech-savvy enough to get it onto this blog.) Pass it on to friends. Encourage your friends to get involved.

* Sign up for periodic e-mail updates from Save Darfur. These e-mail updates contain information about developments in the Darfur region and calls to action that will help you be involved on an ongoing basis.

* Join a local grassroots group dedicated to the Darfur cause. Click here to search by zip code.

* Sign petitions and write letters. Click here to access a quick form letter, or, if you're feeling more ambitious, click here to get addresses for leaders in the Sudanese government, the UN Security Council, and the American government.

* Learn more. Again, there is tons of information available on the internet. One feature that I find to be particularly reliable and powerful is Voices from Darfur, on the Save Darfur website, that features a few Sudanese people telling their own stories.

If you have any other ideas on what our blog readers can do (or anything we should know about Sudan), please leave a comment!

Issue and Action: The Global Food Crisis

Earlier this year, we were hearing from major news outlets about the world food crisis. Between the months of January and April of this year, rice prices increased globally by 141 percent. This was big news here in the United States; I remember hearing that in my home state of Utah, people were buying up all the rice and wheat in sight because of fears over the crisis. But the reports sometimes underplayed the extent to how keenly this price difference was felt in other parts of the world. Keep in mind that there are one billion people in the world who live in less than $1 a day. For many of these people, 75 percent of their income may go to providing food for their families. You can imagine that on a budget like that, any amount of food-price inflation can be catastrophic. We read about riots in West Africa, civil unrest in Haiti, panic and despair all over the world.

When the first reports of the crisis were released, governments from around the world pledged $12 billion in food aid to the hardest-hit countries. Now, five months later, right around $1 billion of that promised amount has been delivered. It's interesting to consider how quickly our government managed to act when the financial markets crashed last month--but how lethargically our government (and others) is moving to respond to the food crisis.

At this point, many countries are still suffering from inflated food prices. Partially as a result of the global community's delayed reaction to the food crisis, the situation is still serious. According to United Nations estimates, the number of malnourished people around the world has grown, over the course of the past year, from 850 million to 925 million people. This means that after decades of progress in reducing world hunger, we are seeing the progress rolled backward, and for the first time in years, there are more hungry people around the world than there were last year.

I just finished an online conference call with Oxfam America, a humanitarian organization that does respected work nationally and internationally. One country highlighted in the conference call was Bangladesh. In the past 9 months, rice prices have risen 90 percent, and as a result the national poverty level has risen from 40 percent to 48 percent. (Keep in mind people fit into this definition of poverty if they are making less than $1.25 per day.) In Haiti, where riots earlier this year ended up in five people dying, people are resorting to eating "mud cakes" out of salt, vegetable shortening, and mud. Hunger and malnutrition already contribute to the deaths of 3.5 million children per year globally, and the numbers are bound to increase with this crisis. As grains like wheat and rice become more expensive, families are often obliged to cut out fruit, vegetables, and protein sources from their diets, and the myriad effects of poor nutrition ensue.

There are many different reasons for this ongoing problem. I'll briefly mention a few. Fundamentally, there have been a number of droughts this year in less-developed countries. (As the world's climate changes and the weather becomes more unpredictable, this is expected to be an ongoing challenge.) As emerging economies develop more capital (e.g. China) and begin to eat more like Americans, the world's grains are increasingly used for beef production rather than human consumption (and it takes 700 calories worth of animals' feed to produce 100 calories of beef). The instability of oil prices doesn't help, either--as oil prices go up, agricultural expenses follow suit. Additionally, as the U.S. has increasingly subsidized biofuel production (something many other developed countries to, too), the price of grain has risen; in other words, rich countries' energy policies have contributed to the rising cost of food around the world.

Oxfam's approach to this crisis has three different levels of intervention. The short term interventions are simple: emergency food aid. Particularly now, as winter is approaching in countries like Afghanistan (where humanitarian conditions are, according to what I learned today, currently the worst they've been in 20 years), emergency food aid is crucial. Middle-term interventions include improving access to food and supporting farmers in less-developed countries in their production efforts and stepping up our support of local reserves around the world. Long-term intervention is also key, though, and it revolves around reforming some of the underlying policies. The conference call a number of examples of policy changes that would be beneficial:

* Rethink the way the U.S. distributes food aid. Currently, the U.S. donates a lot of food aid--which is great--but typically the food is purchased here in the States then shipped overseas. This doubles the cost and slows deliveries. In countries where resources are available (but still unaffordable), it is quicker and more cost-efficient to a) purchase the food there, or b) distribute cash instead, assuming there is enough food on the market that people can purchase it themselves.

* Reinvest in agriculture. In the past, 30 percent of the U.S.'s international aid went to agriculture programs; now it is down to only 5 percent. Agricultural support programs would increase poor farmers' ability to increase production. (Since agriculture is an industry that relies heavily on credit at the beginning of the planting season, increasing credit options for poor farmers would enable them to produce more.) As it is right now, the lack of agricultural support is turning poor countries into importers and taking away their ability to feed themselves.

* Rethink biofuels. Currently in the U.S., one-quarter of the corn produced is converted to ethanol. This would make sense if there was a global food surplus, but currently there is a shortage, so that corn could be better-used.

So this week I've got two action suggestions for you from Oxfam.

Action #1
Participate in the Fast for a World Harvest. Fast for a World Harvest is an ongoing event; in 1974, a group of 250,000 people fasted the Thursday before Thanksgiving and donated the money to Oxfam. Since then, people and groups have conducted fasts, organized hunger banquets, and sponsored community events to raise awareness about global hunger issues and raise money for the cause. Since this month is Thanksgiving, it's perfect timing for you to express your personal gratitude and simultaneously offer a token to those who are suffering from hunger.

There a number of ways you can participate in Oxfam's ongoing Fast for a World Harvest. One way is to make it personal: Set a goal to fast for a meal or a day, in solidarity with people suffering from hunger, then donate the money you would have spent on this meal (to Oxfam or another humanitarian organization of your choice). If you are involved with a community or campus group, think about sponsoring an event; the above link will provide you with organizational information and free materials. Also, communities and campuses around the country are sponsoring Fast for a World Harvest events (like Hunger Banquets): click here to search for events in your community.

This really is the ideal time to participate in the Fast. Next week is Thanksgiving, when we celebrate our abundance with food. What better time to remind ourselves of the fact that this abundance is not a global fact?

Action #2
Take a seat at Oxfam's World Table. Remember those choose-your-own adventure books we used to read as kids? In this interactive application, you can follow the life of one of six people living in a less-developed country, "make choices" and see some of the common dilemmas faced by people. I really recommend sitting down and trying this out when you have a few free minutes. It's good food for thought.

Also, check out the Africa Peace and Justice Network; they have a section of their website dedicated to international agricultural issues. On the green sidebar, you'll find information about two related legislative bills (one on farm aid and one on food aid) that you can research and write your legislators about.

Country Profile and Action: Democratic Republic of the Congo

"Violence against women in conflict is one of history's great silences."
--Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia

When my husband and I were living in Mozambique in the early months of our marriage, we read Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Poisonwood Bible together. (Actually, for the sake of accuracy: He read the entire novel, all 600 pages of it, out loud while I listened. It took four days of nonstop reading. I thought I had malaria --though it turned out to just be some tropical fever that never was diagnosed-- so I laid on a mattress on the floor burning and freezing by turns for those few days while Joe read and read and read. He only stopped reading to get up a couple of times a day and boil potatoes for us to eat. So I have more than one kind of attachment to this book.) The Poisonwood Bible was our first introduction to the history of the Congo, through fiction, and I highly recommend it to anyone. In addition to being a beautifully-written novel, it's an invitation to learn about the history of the region smack-dab in Africa's heart and grapple with sticky issues like colonialism and cultural imperialism.

The country of Democratic Republic of Congo (also referred to as DRC, RDC, or DR Congo) covers a huge area; it is the third-largest country in Africa and is home to roughly 66 million people from at least 250 different ethnic groups. DRC is often confused with its next-door neighbor, The Republic of Congo (which is also sometimes referred to as the Congo or Congo-Brazzaville; I know, it's confusing). The two countries have a shared history in some respects, but when you hear people referring to the current "crisis in the Congo," they are referring to events in DRC.



So I will condense the long and complicated history of the Congo area for you like this. Originally populated by Bantu peoples, the land area was claimed by King Leopold of Belgium in 1885 and named the Congo Free State (the setting for Joseph Conrad's famous novella The Heart of Darkness). As is so often the case under colonial rule, the local population was brutally exploited; it is estimated that in the first 20 years of colonial rule, 10 million people Africans were killed as a result of exploitative labor practice and disease. King Leopold, on the other hand, made a fortune in rubber. In 1908, when reports about the horrendous conditions in the Free State became internationally known, the Belgian parliament took over the Free State from Leopold and renamed it the Belgian Congo.

In 1960, the Congo was given independence, and a period of political turmoil followed. (This period of political instability is covered eloquently in The Poisonwood Bible.) Nationalist Patrice Lumumba was head of state for a few years, then he was overthrown and Mobutu Sese Soko, one of the truly corrupt dictators of our time, came to power and ruled for three decades. During his rule, the country changed its name frequently (four times in 11 years), and eventually settled on Zaire. At first Mobutu had the support of the U.S. (who viewed him as an ally in the fight against communism). The U.S. supplied $300 million worth of weapons ands $100 million worth of military training to Mobutu's military, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, American support for Mobutu cooled.

In 1997, Laurent Kabila (also backed by the U.S.) toppled Mobutu's regime and became president. There was hope for increasing stability now that Mobutu was gone, but the situation rapidly deteriorated. Neighboring countries (Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, Eritrea, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Namibia) all became involved in the conflict in varying capacities. This part of the history is very confusing, but it seems clear that a battle for natural resources is at the very heart of the conflict. All involved parties have some kind of economic stake in DRC. The conflict has been termed "Africa's First World War" because many countries are involved, but the villages of civilians in DRC make up the real battlegrounds. In 2001, Kabila was assassinated and his son, Joseph Kabila, took over as head of state. A number of peace agreements have been signed, but to no avail. At this point, various government forces and rebel groups (and splinter groups) are involved in a brutal fight over resources.

One key to this conflict is coltan; Roughly 65 percent of the world's coltan reserves are located in DRC. Coltan is a component in cell phones, laptop computers, and other electronic equipment. You've heard of conflict diamonds? While conflict diamonds continue to cause huge problems in DRC, we can add to the list conflict cell phones. This fight over DRC's rich natural resources forms the roots of what TIME magazine termed "the deadliest war in the world."

As I've read about the situation in DRC, I've found myself wondering: Why do we hear so much about Sudan and so little about DRC? I don't want to minimize the atrocities in Sudan; it's horrendous. 400,000 people have died; it's been termed a genocide. But in DRC, an estimated 5 million people have died in the past ten years. Yet most Americans are at least tangentially aware that something bad is happening in Sudan, and fewer people have a sense of what's happening in DRC. I've been reading a book by Richard Dowden called Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles (book review coming; it's fantastic). It helped me formulate my understanding of the Congo's history, and it's also helped me understand why the Congo gets less attention. Essentially, the cause of the Sudanese people was first brought to public attention in the U.S. by two concerned groups: Some Christian groups, who were concerned that African Christians were being targets of violence, and African-American groups who were concerned about reports of Arab northerners enslaving black African southerners in Sudan. The U.S., as we know, typically responds to international atrocities in proportion with its own self-interest. In this case, a relevant fact in U.S. interference was this: Sudan has lots of oil--700 million barrels of it. Other articles, like this one from the Guardian, have reinforced my sense that the U.S.'s initial condemnation of Sudan was linked to Sudan's role as an oil-producing country. Some authors have also mentioned the role of anti-Arab prejudice in U.S. foreign policy. Or maybe it's because in Sudan, the Janjaweed is targeting and killing civilians based on their ethnicity (hence the conflict being labeled as genocide), but the conflict in the Congo has followed a path that is common in modern African warfare. There is little direct combat between armies, and the majority of the people are dying from factors related to the displacement and poverty that are consequences of warfare. Starvation, disease, and frequently, side effects of rape--and of course, the violence perpetrated on civilians by fighters on all sides of the conflict.

Regardless of the reasons we have heard less about DRC, these facts remain: 5 million dead. (That's roughly equivalent to the total population of Utah, Idaho and Montana combined.) 1,000 people dying every day. Half of these deaths are children. An estimated 1.5 million people displaced. In recent days and weeks, I've been reading an increasing number of reports about problems in DRC: In the past few weeks, tens of thousands more people have been driven from their homes. A new wave of fighting erupted in recent weeks. Cholera and measles epidemics in refugee camps. Difficulties in getting emergency aid to people because of the widespread insecurity. Increasing attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda.

As is often the case, civilians, especially children, are suffering the most in DRC. The statistics are grim. An estimated 33,000 Congolese children work as child soldiers, having been forcibly recruited. Fully one-third of all Congolese children are malnourished, and one-quarter of children are engaged in child labor. There are 4 million orphans in the country. (Many of these kids have been orphaned by violence, but nearly a million have also lost parents to AIDS.) Less than half the population has access to clean drinking water. Over 2 million people has been displaced. There is extremely limited access to healthcare, which compounds the fact that diseases are more likely to spread when people are living in close quarters without access to clean water or adequate nutrition. Infant mortality rates have reached 41 percent in the eastern part of the country; that means that nearly half of the babies born, die.

One of the truly horrendous components of this conflict is the systematic use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war. This is not new or unique to the conflict in DRC; All over the world and throughout history, rape has been used to destroy communities, dehumanize and injure women and children, and psychologically wreck families. But in DRC, the presence of rape has reached a particularly terrifying level. The DRC has been ranked as one of the worst places in the world to be a woman or a child. It's virtually impossible to get accurate statistics, but it's believed that hundreds of thousands of women and children have been victims of rape over the past decade.

I read an article by Eve Ensler about a year ago that brought the issue of sexual violence in DRC to the forefront for me. It's in an unlikely publication (Glamour), but I encourage you to read it here. I'm not going to address this issue in much more detail. Read Ensler's article or visit peacewomen.org for links to stories about the atrocities and sexual violence being levied against women and children in DRC.

A film, called "The Greatest Silence," was made to give Congolese women the chance to tell their stories about rape and sexual assault. I haven't had the opportunity to see the film in its entirety, but I'm posting the trailer here. Film can be, in my opinion, such a powerful conveyor of personhood that even just this trailer can bring the atrocities to life and make us care more deeply about exploited people:



So what can you do? I was hoping you'd ask...

* Write a Letter to the Editor of your local newspaper(s). It is unbelievable to me how little press DRC is getting considering the magnitude of the crisis. Many people are totally unaware of the situation of Congolese women and children, and this feels unacceptable to me. I'm going to be condensing this blog posting and creating a letter to the editor; I'll let you know if it gets published anywhere. (And make sure you let me know if yours does!)

* Send the link to this blog to your friends and family. Sometimes people hesitate to talk to their friends and family about issues like these because they don't want to get political, but this issue does not belong to any particular point on the political spectrum: It belongs to all of us.

* Sign a petition urging Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) (S.2279, HR.5927). From the website: "Drafted in consultation with more than 150 groups around the world, the IVAWA is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that incorporates proven solution for reducing violence into U.S. international assistance programs. It would impact millions of women, empowering them with tools to escape abuse and poverty."

* Write your representative in the Senate asking them to support Bill S. 3058 (Conflict Coltan and Cassiterite Act of 2008), which asks our government to document a list of groups that are benefiting from inhumane mining practices in DRC, and prohibit the importation of coltan and casseriterite that benefits these groups. To help you in drafting your letter, you can read more about conflict coltan and cassiterite here and here.

* Sign a petition to the president calling for the U.S. to promote peace, protect people, and prosecute perpetrators in DRC.

* Send letters. Amnesty International has two form letters available that you can send directly from their website to American and Congolese officials, indicating your concern about the situation in DRC.

* Be an informed consumer. I've been trying to find a list of tech companies that boycott coltan mined in DRC, but I'm not having much luck finding this kind of information. Does anyone know where it can be accessed? For information on conflict-free diamonds (if you're in the market for jewelry), click here. And for information on being a responsible global consumer of several products (including tech products), click here.

* Learn more. Click here to access a list of films, books and articles that will help you learn more about the history and current situation in DRC. The more you know, the more persuasively you will be able to talk to your family and friends, and encourage them to take action too.

You can find a detailed list of organizations and grassroots movements working to fight violence against women in DRC here.

Followup: Violence Against Women

Just got this e-mail from the Family Violence Prevention Fund:

Everytime you visit www.GiveRespect.org, Geoffrey Beene Gives Back will donate $5 to the RESPECT! Campaign on your behalf.

That's right. With just one click of your mouse, you can help generate a $5 donation to the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF), up to $500,000. It’s that easy. It costs you nothing. And, it raises critical funds for the FVPF’s programs to end and prevent violence against women and children.

Once you get to GiveRespect.org you can also show your support for the cause and express your respect for others by creating "Acts of Respect." Each time you do, Geoffrey Beene Gives Back will donate another $5.

Issue: Volence Against Women

This post is just a primer. I'm working on a lengthy post about Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it occurs to me I should probably offer some kind of brief primer on "gender-based violence" before I launch into the situation in the Congo. I don't really like the term "gender-based violence" because it sounds slightly sterile, but the term can be construed to include such diverse atrocities as spousal abuse, rape, sexual assault, female genital mutilation, sex-selective abortion and infanticide, honor killings, bride-burning, and the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, among other practices. We'll get into more detail on some of these issues later.

In essence, though, women and girls are routinely targeted with violence simply because of their gender. There is no country or culture around the world that is immune to the selective abuses of girls and women. Here in the United States, in fact, one in three women report being raped or physically abused by a spouse, date or intimate partner at some time in their life.

Click here to watch a film and add your name to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), indicating your commitment to fighting violence against women.

One other reason that I don't like the term "gender-based violence" is that it turns violence into a women's issue, when it clearly isn't. It's a human rights issue that affects men, women and children. The Family Violence Prevention Fund has a Men's Network Against Domestic Violence, that operates on the core fact that although most domestic violence and rape is committed by men, most men are not abusers. And in fact, men have power in stopping domestic violence that women don't have--not just in their own lives, but in their example and their words to other men. At this site, men can sign a pledge indicating their commitment to fighting rape and violence, and can access more suggestions on how to get involved in the movement.

Film Review: War Photographer

There may be a lot of film reviews in these early days of the blog. I'm currently taking, for graduate school, a class about film, representation, and identity. We are studying both documentary and fiction films, and talking about how those films portray cultures and people. We've watched a number of films that are relevant to this blog--hence the propensity of film reviews!

Today I'm recommending to you the film War Photographer. This film follows one of the most famous war photographers of our time, James Nachtwey, who is an impressive human being with an almost-unbelievable commitment to making people aware of what war looks like. Here's the trailer:



This is not an easy film to watch. Through the use of a video camera attached to the top of Nachtwey's camera, we see what he sees. We hear his breath, and the clicking of the camera. Interspersed with this, the film features still shots of Nachtwey's photographs, which are often breathtaking and sometimes so horrendous it's hard to look. After all, Nachtwey has photographed some of the great atrocities of our time: The Rwandan genocide, the war in Bosnia, famine in Somalia. He has taken pictures in the West Bank, South Africa, Chechnya, Sudan, Nicaragua. You can see some of his photographs on his website.

Nachtwey's photos have put the global horrors of war onto the glossy pages of magazines, and have forced people to deal with the reality of atrocities. Despite the fact that I cried through half the film and could hardly look at the screen sometimes, I'm grateful I watched it. Without that camera and that photograph, I would never have seen, for example, that one particular mourning Bosnian woman. I would not have had the opportunity to participate, even if it is vicariously, in her grief and her agony. And I do believe that it is possible to participate, to engage, through a photograph. When I look at James Nachtwey’s photographs, I feel closer to a reality that I haven’t experienced personally; I’m forced to confront humanity in a way I don’t typically have to in my everyday life. And I believe that it’s important to confront humanity like that. I really believe that films and photographs give us a shot at developing compassion, which is a kind of stepping stone to empathy. And I think I've made this clear before on this blog: I personally believe that the development of an abiding empathy is one of the central purposes of life.

Action: Vote!

It's tomorrow: Election Day! The ONE Campaign has provided a handy chart comparing McCain's and Obama's positions on various issues related to international development and foreign aid. (Both candidates have some good things to say, but I think it's important that we know what they're saying.) The page also provides links to videos of both candidates speaking about global poverty, and more comprehensive information. Click here to check it out. (Sorry there's no info here about third-party candidates.) Have fun with your ballot box!

By the way...you guys are killing me with the lack of comments. Come on! Say something!

Followup: Trick or Treat for UNICEF

Well, my one-year-old daughter and I just got back from our TOT for UNICEF extravaganza. I emptied out the box and counted out the money, and looks like we collected a grand total of $15.19. Not bad for a one-year-old! This will be a yearly tradition in our family; I think it's such a great way to teach kids about activism and giving and being a citizen of a world community. I don't think she really picked up on any of those messages today (she was too busy trying to understand why we couldn't go into the houses and play with people's pets), but someday she'll get more out of it. For what it's worth, she did figure out the process of folding the money and slipping it into the box!

People were very friendly. Every single person we visited tonight was familiar with UNICEF, and a number of them said they remembered doing TOT for UNICEF when they were kids.

While I was sitting on the floor counting the money, I had a flashback to my senior year of college when our UNICEF campus group had been coordinating TOT for UNICEF events at half a dozen (more?) elementary schools. I remember sitting on the floor for hours counting out well over $1,000 in pennies and dimes, rolling the change up so I could take it to the Coinstar machine. (Maybe some of you were there with me? Does anyone else have this memory too?)

Did anyone else do TOT? Any stories to tell? Or, while we're following up, did anyone take any action on Sudan?

Film Review: Pray the Devil Back to Hell

I think one of the most powerful vehicles for helping us to understand global issues is film. And one of the most powerful documentary films I have ever seen is Pray the Devil Back to Hell (recommended to me by my friend Laura, to whom I am indebted). Here's the trailer:



Pray the Devil Back to Hell is set in Liberia, a West African nation with a tumultuous history. After decades of civil war, Liberia had become a country that could hardly remember peaceful times. This documentary chronicles a group of "ordinary" women who, in the late 1990s, decided that they had had enough of war. They decided to stand up for peace. Groups of Christian and Muslim women came together to protest and lobby. At first they were hardly acknowledged, but with persistence and creativity these women managed to make their voices heard at the highest levels of government, and they changed their country in powerful ways.

My husband and I saw this film at a film festival in Boston, and we were absolutely blown away. It is a story of human brutality, but also the enduring power of hope. And about women, and sisterhood, and not giving up. (Incidentally, the current president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is the first elected female head-of-state in Africa.)

This is from the website (which is worth visiting even just to hear Angelique Kidjo's gorgeous theme music): Tribeca Film Festivals' Best Documentary Award-Winning Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-old civil war. This incredible, uplifting story has also earned awards at Silverdocs (Witness Award), Jackson Hole Film Festival (Audience Choice: Documentary), Traverse City Film Festival (Special Jury Prize: Non-fiction Filmmaking), and the Heartland Film Festival (Best Documentary). Desmond Tutu, Winner 1984 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, says that Pray the Devil Back to Hell"...eloquently captures the power each of us innately has within our souls to make this world a far better, safer, more peaceful place."

Depending on where you live, it may be difficult to get access to this film. You can click here for information on theaters and special events in cities across the country. Even if you don't see it coming to a theater near you, though, please keep your eyes open for this film in the future. It really is a must-see.

Issue: Child Labor

I'm posting a video called "No Es Un Joc" ("Not a Game"); you can visit the website for more information. This video takes you into the lives of child laborers in several Latin American countries. I probably won't normally post videos that are this long, but I was really impressed with this one. It has a minimum of commentary, it lets children speak for themselves, and it really gives the viewer some critical perspective.

Child labor is a very real problem around the world. It's difficult to accurately say how many children are involved in child labor, because it's a tricky thing to define. Many children work in agriculture or with their families, and the line that marks an appropriate amount of work can be fuzzy. Reliable estimates state that 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are economically active, and half of those children work full-time (meaning they don't go to school). Child labor is much more common in rural areas than in urban areas, and boys are more likely to be engaged in economic activity. (Still, girls are more likely to have heavy unpaid household chores in their home OR someone else's, and primary and secondary school enrollment rates are almost universally lower for girls than for boys.) Child labor is closely linked to other topics that we'll tackle in coming weeks and months: Child trafficking, child soldiers, street children, the gender gap in education, etc.

An important term to know when you're reading about child labor is "worst forms of child labor." Descriptions of what constitutes the worst forms of child labor were briefly categorized in the International Labor Organization's Convention 182). Basically, these worst forms include any kind of slavery or forced labor, commercial sexual exploitation (like prostitution and pornography), illegal activities (like drug trafficking), or any kind of work that subjects children to hazardous conditions or physical/psychological danger. This means that on the spectrum of child labor activities, working on a family farm is typically much less harmful than, say, being forced to fight as a soldier in Uganda or being forced into prostitution in Thailand. An estimated 179 million children are engaged in one of the worst forms of child labor on a full- or part-time basis. This comes out to be one child out of every eight children in the world.

To read more about child labor, click here or here.

Action: Trick or Treat for UNICEF

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is one of the most far-reaching and respected humanitarian organizations in the world. I love UNICEF--I'll just come right out and say it. I did an internship at the UNICEF-Philippines country office (and I've seen their work in many other countries), and I am always amazed at how UNICEF really can get into places that other organizations can't. UNICEF focuses their efforts on children. Funds donated to UNICEF go to six key areas: Education, emergency relief, water and sanitation, health and immunization, HIV/AIDS, and nutrition. We'll be talking about all these issues in future blog posts, but for now you can click the links to get more information about the specific kinds of projects that UNICEF sponsors.

Every year, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF sponsors Trick or Treat for UNICEF. This is where kids take little orange boxes with them while trick-or-treating, collecting coins and donations for UNICEF. I'm sure many of you will be trick-or-treating this weekend, so it's a great opportunity for you to do a little fundraising while you're at it! To get an orange box, go to the Trick or Treat for UNICEF website. You can search by zip code for UNICEF's retail partners that have boxes available at their locations. Or, alternatively, the website also has a downloadable orange label that you can print out and paste on a canister to take with you.

The website is also full of other kid-oriented resources and fact sheets, including ideas on what to say as you're encouraging people to donate. After you've collected the money, you can send it through a Coinstar machine, or you can donate online, by mail or over the phone.

In college, I worked with schools who were doing Trick or Treat for UNICEF, and it was fantastic. It's a really powerful teaching tool for kids: an opportunity to say, "Let's be grateful that we have access to clean water and enough food, because not all kids do," then watch your kids kick into do-something mode. Kids have an amazing natural impulse to get involved, and Trick or Treat for UNICEF gives them the chance to participate meaningfully in their global community. So get yourself a little orange box and hit the streets! If you do it, please post a comment telling us how it went.

Introduction

For the past month and a half, I've been working on a contract project that has involved researching issues connected to child labor in various countries. Most of the information I came across wasn't new to me. Those of you who know me well are aware that I have been involved with humanitarian causes, that I've tried to be as globally aware as possible. So I am not surprised by child labor and human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children; I know it's out there, I know what it looks like, and I've seen its face firsthand all over the world. Still, as I worked on this project, I had moments of desperation. I had moments (late at night, reading about child sex slaves in Macedonia, and children who spend their days cutting sugar cane in El Salvador, and the widespread rape of women and girls in the Congo) where I felt overwhelmed by it. I learned about the history of a few countries I didn't know much about before, like East Timor and Mauritania. I had a few nights where I couldn't sleep because of the stories that were spinning in circles in my head. I had a lot of moments where I thought, "If more people knew about this, we couldn't possibly let it go on."

But it goes on. I firmly believe part of the reason for this is that not enough people know about it.

When you open a newspaper or click onto the internet, world news tends to be smushed into a corner. If you want to read about U.S. politics or spoiled celebrities or how to lose weight, the American news media will be happy to oblige. But it can be harder to come across reliable, compassionate information about the rest of the world. When we do get access to world news, it often centers around international politics and the global economy --important information, to be sure-- but the lives of families, real people, remain unfamiliar to us. It is especially hard to hear the voices of children.

This blog is designed to give you access to that kind of information. I'll discuss issues (like child labor, human trafficking, and poverty--all issues that also exist in the United States). I'll give geography and history lessons. I'll review books and films that help us grasp the state of the world we're living in. I'll recommend websites and news sources. I'll tell you about amazing people who live all over the world and are actively engaged in making their communities better places. I'll host guest bloggers with expertise in these areas. And although I am not naive to the difficulties of "making a difference," I'll provide ideas for ways you can take action on some of these issues.

I have been accused, in the past, of being depressing. And honestly? I know there's truth to it. I can't apologize for it. There is a lot that goes on in the world that we should feel sad about. There are things that should keep us awake at night. I've thought a lot about what kind of tone I want this blog to take. I don't want you to come away every time feeling utterly debilitated, bereft, anguished--but I also don't want you to turn away from the computer and forget about what you read or saw. On a spectrum --where one end is total depression and the other end is ignorant unawareness-- I try to live most of my life somewhere in the middle: Perpetually uncomfortable with injustice and inhumanity, but still filled with hope.

I just don't believe in flinching, I suppose. I believe that empathy and compassion are traits born of mutual suffering. And power --action, movement-- is an inevitable result of empathy. Helping is exceedingly tricky. But the first step, which must be taken long before we make any attempt at helping a person, is learning. Knowledge has the ability to slide us, ever so gradually, along the path of understanding another person. And when we get there? Well, I just keep hoping that at that moment, we'll know what to do.